Capitol Theatre is being... I don't know what it's being turned into. But I'll bet shops will be a significant feature.

Cathay Cinema

And I can't recognise Cathay Cinema. Or whatever it is now. I hear there are shops and eateries in there.

The General Post Office is now a hotel.

We used to have "Worlds" of entertainment or at least amusement - Great World, New World, Gay World. And... Beauty World? Was that ever an amusement park?

Great World has been redeveloped into a... (surprise!) shopping mall. New World is now City Square (or it stands on the site previously occupied by New World Amusement Park). And Gay World? We don't use the "G" word around here. Might attract the wrong kind of tourists.

But Pulau Ubin seems to be left behind by time. If you ignore the modern bicycles, the little "village" at the pier has been untouched by time.

Yes, the stage for wayang or opera is there permanently (no other use for the site, no need to dismantle when not in use).

Pulau Ubin is old Singapore, left behind by Time.

Perhaps we can go back in time on Pulau Ubin.

Perhaps there could be a scale working replica of the National Theatre and Van Kleef Aquarium. Maybe it could be part of a new amusement park called New World Amusement Park. The Majestic Theatre could also be recreated there on a smaller scale. And Capitol and Cathay. For a start, it would only operate on school holidays and a few national holidays.

Why we resist the ideologues

There are... liberal democracies where you can have an "Amos Yee" type freedom.

There are also very sad places where there is little freedom or security, and life is very hard.

And there are a few places where there is quite a lot of chaos and life is uncertain.

Then there are very few places where you can be reasonably civilised and have sufficient security and responsible freedom to have a good life.

Singapore is one such Oasis of sensibleness... we are an Oasis of order, competence, efficiency, and reasonableness in an otherwise chaotic unreasonable, incompetent WORLD. Not just the region.

If Singapore becomes a copy of a Western Liberal Democracy with all the inherent inefficiencies, silliness, drama, and chaos, it would be a very sad thing...

If Singapore breaks down and devolves into a corrupt, ineffective, unfocused, shambling chaotic third world country, it would also be a very sad thing.

There is only one place where you can find Singapore's straightforwardness, integrity, efficiency, competence, order... And that is here, in Singapore.

If we lose this, whether because we lean to much to the left, or whether we let ourselves sink into mediocrity through complacency or a sense of destiny, or divine right, it will be gone.

...so that is why we resist the ideologues.

Trees

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in.”

Reminder

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” - Ernest Hemingway

The Tao of Government

"Therefore the sage, in the exercise of his government, empties their minds, fills their bellies, weakens their wills, and strengthen their bones."

"He constantly (tries to) keep them without knowledge, and without desire, and where there are those who have knowledge, to keep them from presuming to act (on it). When there is this abstinence from action, good order is universal."